Charles
Nathan Newman :
"So the land is being taken for public ownership:
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And here's something almost no one paid attention to. The land being taken is not being sold to private developers. "the development corporation will own the land located within the development area. The development corporation will enter into ground leases of various parcels to private developers; those leases will require the developer to comply with the terms of the development plan."
So the land is being taken for public ownership, which should satisfy even "public use" fundamentalists, unless eminent domain is illegitimate even if any part of such land is leased to any private company.
Again, maybe the development plan is not the best possible, but with such a complicated public planning process, I actually don't think it's the role of the courts to second-guess whether the community was sufficiently taken account of. A far better focus of the courts -- one I have far more sympathy for -- would be for them to assure that voting rights of average citizens are being respected so that elected leaders are responsible to the community. But the judges shouldn't try to substitute their judgement for the actually elected leaders.
Nathan Newman